Outback Bride

And then he moved out of the shadow of the house and came towards the steps to stand looking up at where she sat next to Megan, and Copper found herself getting shakily to her feet, her heart drumming in disbelief.

It couldn’t be Mal, but it was...it was! No one else could have that quiet mouth or those unfathomable brown eyes, steady and watchful beneath the dark brows. No other man could have just that angle of cheek and jaw, or make her bones dissolve just by standing there.

Would he remember her as clearly as she remembered him? Oh, God, what if he did? Or would it be worse if he didn’t?

Beneath his hat, Mal’s eyes narrowed as he looked up at Copper, clinging to the verandah post as if her legs were too weak to support her. She was wearing loose shorts and a matching short-sleeved linen jacket, an outfit she had chosen with care to impress the formidable Mr Standish. In the motel that morning it had seemed to strike the perfect balance between casual elegance and practicality, but the long, bumpy drive since then had left her looking instead hot, crumpled and ridiculously out of place, and the wavy brown hair that normally swung in a blunt cut to her jaw was dusty and limp.

All too conscious of the picture she must make, Copper was passionately grateful for the sunglasses that hid her eyes. Swallowing convulsively, she managed a weak ‘hello’, although her voice sounded so high and tight that she hardly recognised it as her own.

Before Mal had a chance to reply, Megan had launched herself down the steps towards him. ‘Dad!’

Copper’s mind, still spinning with shock, jarred to a sickening halt. Dad? All those times she had wondered about Mal and what he was doing, not once had she pictured him as a husband, as a father. And yet, why not? He must be thirty five by now, quite old enough to have settled down with a wife and child. It was just that he had been such a solitary man, Copper told herself, pretending that the hollow feeling in her stomach was due simply to surprise.

It was hard to imagine anyone so self-contained bogged down in a life of domesticity, that was all. Surely that was reason enough for her to feel as if someone had hit her very hard in the solar plexus? It had nothing whatsoever to do with any silly dreams that he might have stayed faithful to the memory of the few short days they had spent together. She hadn’t, so why should he?

Mal had caught Megan instinctively as she hurtled down the steps, and now swung her up into his arms. ‘I thought I told you to stay on the fence where I could see you?’ he said to her, but spoilt the stern effect by ruffling her dark curls before lowering her to the ground once more. Megan hung onto his hand as he turned his attention back to Copper, his expression quite unreadable.

‘At last,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

For one extraordinary moment Copper thought that he was telling her that he’d waited seven years for her after all. ‘For—for me?’ she stuttered, trying not to stare.

The angular face was just as she remembered, cool, rather quiet, but with strong, well-defined features and a mouth which could look almost stern in repose but which could relax too into an unexpected smile. Copper had never forgotten that smile, how it transformed his whole face and how the air had evaporated from her lungs the first time she had seen it.

He wasn’t smiling now. The years had etched harsher lines around his mouth and there was a shuttered look to his eyes. Copper thought he looked tired, and her shock was punctured at last by shame as she remembered that Megan’s mother was dead. It was no wonder that he looked harder, older than her memory.

‘You’re late,’ Mal was saying, apparently unaware of her inner turmoil. ‘I was expecting you at least four days ago.’

Had her father given him an exact date to expect her when he had written? Copper looked puzzled, but before she could ask him what he meant Megan had tugged at his hand. ‘Her name’s Copper.’

There was a tiny moment of silence. Surely he must remember her name, if nothing else, Copper thought wildly. She had sunglasses on and her hair was quite different now, but her name hadn’t changed. She waited for Mal to turn, recognition and surprise lighting his face, but he was looking down at his daughter.

‘Copper?’ he repeated, his voice empty of all expression.

‘It’s not a proper name,’ Megan informed him. ‘It’s a nickname.’

Mal did look at Copper then, but his brown eyes were quite unreadable. Could it be that he really had forgotten her? An obscure sense of pique sharpened Copper’s voice.

‘I’m Caroline Copley,’ she said, relieved to hear that she sounded almost her old business-like self. At least her voice had lost that humiliating squeak. ‘I was hoping to see Matthew Standish.’

‘I’m Matthew Standish,’ said Mal calmly, and all her newly recovered poise promptly deserted her as her jaw dropped.

‘You are? But—’ She broke off in embarrassment.

Mal lifted an eyebrow. ‘But what?’

What could she say? She could hardly accuse him of not knowing his own name, and if she did she would have to explain how they had met before. Copper had her pride, and she was damned if she was going to remind a man that he had once made love to her!

She didn’t remember telling him about her name, or asking him about his own. He might have told her his surname, but if he had, she hadn’t remembered it. She remembered only his slow, sure hands on her skin and the strange sense of coming home as she had walked barefoot across the sand towards him.

‘But what?’ said Mal again. He didn’t remember her. He wasn’t racked by memories. His heart wasn’t booming in his ears at the thought of what they had once shared. He was just standing there with that inscrutable look on his face, waiting for a flustered stranger to answer his question.

‘Nothing,’ said Copper. Realising that she was still clinging to the verandah post, she let it go hurriedly. ‘I mean, I...I was expecting an older man, that’s all.’

‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’ Was that an undercurrent of amusement in his voice? ‘If it’s any comfort, you’re not exactly what I was expecting either.’

His face didn’t change, there wasn’t even a suspicion of a smile about his mouth, but somehow Copper got the feeling that he was laughing at her. Confused, uncertain whether to feel hurt or relieved that Mal didn’t remember her, she stuck her chin out. ‘Oh?’ she said almost belligerently. ‘What were you expecting me to be like?’

Mal studied her with a disconcerting lack of haste, from her flushed face, tense and vivid beneath her sunglasses, down over the slender figure in the crumpled suit, down slim, brown legs to the leather sandals which showed off deep red toenails. Still standing nervously at the top of the steps, Copper managed to look tired and vibrant and completely out of place.

‘Let’s say that I was expecting someone a little more...practical,’ he said at last.

‘I’m very practical,’ snapped Copper, burningly aware of his scrutiny.

Mal said nothing, but his eyes rested on her toenails and she had to resist the urge to curl up her feet. He obviously thought she was just a city girl who had no idea about life in the outback. City girl she might be, but impractical she wasn’t. She was a professional businesswoman and it was about time she behaved like one, instead of stuttering and stammering like a schoolgirl just because she had come face to face with a man she had met briefly more than seven years ago. It was a surprise, a coincidence, but no more than that.

Mal’s unspoken disbelief helped Copper pull herself together. ‘I realise I don’t look quite as efficient as I usually do,’ she said coldly, ‘but it was a longer drive than I anticipated, and your track is in very poor condition.’

‘You should have come in the bus,’ said Mal, with a disparaging glance across to where her car sat, looking as citified and inappropriate as she did. ‘I’d have sent someone to pick you up.’

Copper eyed him in some puzzlement. Her father had written to say that his daughter would be coming to Birraminda to negotiate the deal in his stead, but she certainly hadn’t had the impression that Matthew Standish had been so enthusiastic about their plan that he would go to the trouble of collecting her. Still, perhaps her father had misjudged his interest?

‘I thought it would be better for me to be independent,’ she said loftily, unprepared for the look of distaste that swept across Mal’s face.

‘We’ve had enough independent types at Birraminda,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘And it’s not as if you’re going to need a car while you’re here.’ His mouth twisted with sudden bitterness. ‘I’m reliably informed that there’s nowhere to go.’

Looking out at the empty horizon, Copper could believe it. ‘Well, no,’ she agreed. ‘But I wasn’t planning on staying for ever!’

An odd look flickered in Mal’s eyes and then was gone. ‘I realise that,’ he said expressionlessly. He looked down at the child leaning trustfully against his leg, and rested his hand on the small head. ‘I can’t say I’m not glad to see you, anyway,’ he added as if he had just reminded himself of something. ‘Megan, run along and tell Uncle Brett to finish off without me, will you?’

Megan nodded importantly and scampered off. Mal looked after her, his expression unguarded for a moment, and, watching him. Copper felt something twist inside her. He had looked at her like that once. She suppressed a sigh as he turned back to her, his face closed once more. She might as well forget all about their brief affair right now. Mal obviously had.

‘You’d better come inside,’ he said, climbing up the steps towards her and Copper found herself taking a quick step back in case he brushed against her.

Her instinctive movement didn’t go unnoticed by Mal. He made no comment, and his eyes were as inscrutable as ever, but Copper was convinced there was subtle mockery in the way he held the screen door open for her, as if he knew just how confused she was, how terrified that his slightest touch would bring back an avalanche of memories.

Head held high, she walked past him into the house. Inside, all was dim and cool and quiet. The homestead was much bigger than Copper had imagined from outside, with several corridors leading off from the long entrance hall, and it had a kind of dusty charm that she had somehow not expected to find this far from any kind of civilisation.

Mal led the way along to a very large, very untidy kitchen with a door onto the back verandah. Through the window, Copper could see a dusty yard shaded by a gnarled old gum and surrounded by a collection of outbuildings, a tall windmill and two enormous iron water tanks. To one side lay the creek, where cockatoos wheeled out of the trees and galahs darted over the water, turning in flashes of pink and grey, and in the distance an irrigated paddock looked extraordinarily green and lush compared to the expanse of bare holding yards that stretched out of sight. Copper could just make out some cattle milling around in the pens, lifting clouds of red dust with their hooves.

Tossing his hat onto the table, Mal crossed over to the sink and filled up the kettle. ‘Tea?’

‘Er...yes...thank you.’ Copper took off her sunglasses and sank down into a chair. She felt very odd.

At times, perhaps more often than she wanted to admit, she had dreamt about meeting Mal again. Her fantasies had usually involved them catching sight of each other unexpectedly, their faces lighting up with instant recognition. Sometimes she had pictured him shouldering his way through crowds towards her, reaching for her hands, surrendering to the same electric attraction that had brought them together the first night they met. Or she had let herself imagine him looking deep into her eyes and explaining how he had lost her address and spent the last seven years scouring England and Australia to find her again.

What she hadn’t imagined was that he would behave as if he had never seen her before in his life and calmly offer her a cup of tea!

Copper sighed inwardly. Perhaps it was just as well. She mustn’t forget that she was here to set up a vital deal, and trying to negotiate with a man who remembered the past as clearly as she did would have been more than a little awkward.